NAIVETY OR PREJUDICE

P.N. Abelson I was raised in Utah. Smack dab in the middle of Utah. The city of Orem, the county of Utah in the state of Utah. Smack dad in the middle of Mormonism. But more than that, smack dab in the middle of Vanilla U.S.A. We were all alike. Clones of each other. White, conservative, middle Americans. I was not raised with blacks, Jews or anyone else that was different, except for a few Catholics. I was, however, not raised to be prejudiced, just naive. That is what I thought then. The road was long and dusty. My new old car that I had just washed was getting filthy. It was 1962. I was in the Air Force and I had just bought a 1951 ford 4-door sedan. We were in Northern Louisiana, stationed at Barksdale AFB, just outside of Bossier City. It was a nice warm Saturday morning and we were on our way to Flag Lake for a day of sun and fun. There were three of Danny O Clark, naturally nick named Doc, Dennis Anderson, the DA and myself, Stan Beatty. I was referred to as Stosh, (polish for Stan). I never new whether they thought I was a polish joke or they just needed a nick name for me. Either way, it did not matter. We were Air Force buddies having good times together. There used to be 4 of us. The fourth being Paul N. Abelson, the Jew. Yep, that's right , his nick name was "the Jew". He had been and I guess still was part of our group. He was good with the name. He was from New York, came from money and we always kidded him about being a rich New York Jew. It was all in jest. But this week we were mad at him and he knew it, so he drove his own car. The previous week was the last week of the month and we were broke. At least the three of us were broke, Paul always had money. On Friday Paul had come to the rest of us and wanted us to go into Bossier City with him to see his girl friend or at least a girl he wanted to be his girl friend. She was a waitress at one of the local bars. We were as I stated earlier , Broke. So we told him no, we didn't have any money. He said. "don't worry about it". We thought that meant he would buy us a beer or two and we could enjoy the evening, so we went. However, that was not the case. What Paul meant by "don't worry about it" was that it was all right with him that we sat and watched while he drank his beer and talked to the girl. We were dry and furious. On the way home we did not say a word. For the next week we shunned him and when he came around, we would say "here comes Paul N. Abelson, He's a Jew". On this day we were on our way to the company picnic at the lake. We told Paul we were not going, hoping he would not go. However, when we arrived at the lake his car was there, all dusty and dirty like mine. Doc and the DA had gone on ahead of me and I was alone when I walked by Paul,s car. I, coming from my vanilla and naive background, thought it would be funny to draw a swastika in the dust on his car. I walked on to the lake, giggling to myself about my naïve joke. I had no idea what reaction I expected but his reaction was not what I wanted. When Paul saw the swastika on the back of his car he became instantly mad and afraid. Mostly afraid. No not afraid, dammed scared. Fear like I have never seen before. I could see it in his eyes, he was looking everywhere, afraid to leave his back open I was instantly ashamed of the coward I had just created. Not Paul, me. I was ashamed of myself. I never realized what the symbol meant, what it stood for, what the Jewish people had gone through, what they were still going through, what my stupid naive gesture really meant to Paul. I was the coward. I could not do the right thing. I could not confess to Paul that I did it and it was stupid and that I was sorry. I never told him. I left him thinking that in fact there were Jew haters near by. I should have been a man and confessed. I didn't. To this day the guilt still haunts me. Paul, if for some reason you ever read this, I sincerely apologize. I do not ask for forgiveness. I believe what I did was unforgivable. For what it is worth, I really learned in that moment what prejudice really is and have tried to keep prejudice out of my life.